Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ brain scans

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “drugs” is based on a Daily Mail report on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brains of 19 “devout Mormons” (what—no other faiths?). When the Mormons were scanned while undergoing religious experiences, like reading scripture or watching Mormon videos, the fMRIs (which show blood flow to various parts of the brain) revealed activation of several parts of the brain, notably including the “nucleus accumbens”, a bit that also lights up during hedonistic experiences like taking drugs or listening to music. (You can read the paper in Social Neurosciencehere, though I haven’t done so.)

At any rate, Jesus is willing to see how other stimulants affect him, but of course Mo is forbidden from drinking or listening to music. My suspicion is that Jesus’s “drug”, which appears to be a Guinness, isn’t strong enough.

I think that’s an error – I’ve never met a Muslim who had an issue with coffee. Or indeed, other stimulants (e.g. khat). It’s just alcohol that gets the off-switch.
Also, I’ve never heard of Muslims being banned from listening to music in general – though some genres attract opprobrium.

Which just demonstrates yet again that there are many different kinds of Muslims (just like Xtians) and that religion often gets ‘adjusted’ to suit the local customs. My Bosnian Muslim refugee tenants were very proud of their home-made wine.

I’m sure there are caffein-phobe Muslims somewhere – but such phobes are fairly likely to keep themselves to themselves in a madrassa somewhere, rather than spending a lot of time in the evil outside world. After all, the only times I meet Mormons is because they put themselves out on the streets.

Haggis. I didn’t click the link because I love my computer too much to risk an infection, but I do know the type of content because there’s a lot of sites that use variations on Mormon Girls in their url 🙂

I read an article about Salt Lake City recently & I expected it to be a locked down place what with the LDS cult’s obsession with controlling their member’s morality [no alcohol for example]. But they have bars & clubs [straight & gay] just like every major US city – just with some silly face-saving rules.

Look up google images of “Zion curtain” for a funny example of the hypocrisy. Very Swiftian [if that’s a word!]

The Zion curtain reminds me that until quite recently Scottish pubs always had frosted glass windows to the outside world. I understand this was to comply with licensing laws, which in turn were in place to prevent the passing public from seeing how much the regulars were enjoying themselves!

I read the original paper about six months ago. If I remember rightly the research was carried out in Salt Lake City. Perhaps Mormons because they were locally available?

I also think they addressed the effects of Mormons being exposed to general Christian texts, secular moral texts, and specific Mormon stimuli designed to have the subjects experience “feeling the Spirit”. This later being the religious state they were interested in characterising.